Yup! This year I get the hand working. Good or bad, fancy crap it’s all going to be up here. This does not mean I am going to stop writing. It just means I am going to start working on my art. I want to practice more, draw better, experiment and explore. What better way than to go public! That should ensure I don’t fall into the lazy trap!

Another looong pause but I am back! Was down with exams; the drill —ten days, eleven subjects, fluctuating pulses and moments when your neurons refuse to connect. I didn’t detest it with a vengeance this time. Alas! Age has killed my passion!

Nevertheless, it was a neat wind up and I am looking forward to an eventful holiday. There are a few things I intend to accomplish this season. “Laughing my bloody lungs out no matter which way the wind blows!” is on top of my list. Think about it. If you need to depend on “great sense of humour” to crack up, you are leading a boring life. So this is going to be me laughing just for the love of laughter.

Then, I am going to be listening to a lot of music along with a lot of singing and foot stomping! Loads of it! Loud! Finally, there is going to be food. Experiments with food will be disclosed if and only if the results of “family testing” are positive.

There exists this general perception that Beauty is inferior to Brains. The notion seems to be that it’s ok to be an ugly, intelligent person but not ok to be a beautiful, dumb person. And I seem incapable of perceiving the difference between these two entities.

Give it a thought. Neither your beauty, nor your brains (read talent, skill, IQ etc.) are your own soul creations. You are beautiful or intelligent or talented or street smart or skillful by virtue of your genes, your circumstances, your lifestyle, your mental makeup, nature or “grace of God” if you must. The ultimate purpose is to use whatever you have to make your living. But you can’t merely use your “gifts.” You need to polish it, enhance it, and work with it to make your cut.

This takes me to Skill Surgery vs. Cosmetic Surgery. Each day you work on several aspects of your abilities such as your knowledge, your problem solving skills, your concentration levels, to excel in a competitive environment. The same applies to people from the field of sports, dance, music and arts. The beauties, on the other hand, work hard on their bodies. While the brains subject themselves to high pressure learning environments that involve mental transformation, beauties subject themselves to extensive beauty remedies and sometimes cosmetic fixing for physical transformations.

Let’s be honest, all of us require some fixing, some nip and tuck, whether it be our brains or our looks. While some of you work hard on creating an altered perception of smartness or intelligence in a social environment, some others work on creating an altered visual perception. And I don’t see how one is any less a mask than the other. And since we are all masked, what’s the big deal about?

In my eyes, the display of your mathematics scores to win the high-value brand institution is not any different from the display of your bodies to win the “Hottest Beach Body” title. Beauty is as subjective as your brain’s ability to score better than the others given a second chance.

Anyway, while the beauty and the brains breakeven the rest of us, who do not belong to either of the extremes, must get to work. We have a lot of surgeries in the pipeline!

Scrutiny is inevitable when walking into a pool full of new faces. A judgement begins with an assumption and is eventually proved right or wrong. As far as human behaviour is concerned, it’s just a rough estimation. Most of us believe we make accurate judgements of a personality but few of us admit that our judgment is trash. Every nascent relationship is about giving chances; several chances. Ideally, you say nice things, they say nice things, you say stupid things, they say stupid things, you are mean, and they are mean. Sometimes you are nice but they are mean and vice versa. There is a lot of room for misunderstandings and misinterpretations. But after several awkward interactions you enter a phase of comfort interactions and eventually stabalize. That level of stabalization is your relationship with the person. It is this relationship that you are going to build upon.

All through graduation and post graduation we’ve been groomed to develop formal relationships; get interview-ready. A lot is said about body language, attires, presentations, etc. followed by several trainings and lists of do’s and don’ts under the pretext of personality development. The question is what parts of our personality does appropriate decoration intend to develop? Our focus is currently on generating “say the right thing, do the right thing, behave the right way” puppets. In such a situation when people say they are looking for something unique, it makes me wonder why they are looking for “something unique” on an assembly line! If you really think about it, why should the onus of your poor judgement come on the opposition? If you judge a book by its cover, it doesn’t become the books fault!

Currently people around me claim to be great leaders, great communicators, and great listeners and they probably are. They are also confident, intelligent, proactive, outgoing and all the greatness you can think of. But you are what your strengths and weaknesses make you. Your essence, your originality lies there. Yet, you are wise to never disclose your weakness and I know you will never disclose yourself. But I hope you know that this means we might never know each other.

I woke up this morning realizing the lumps of mucus coated meat we were as we shimmied out of the cervix. Ousted by the womb– “Here are your eyes–courtesy beautiful mother, your nose– your dad’s to blame, your mouth, your limbs… Take it or leave it!”–we tried to tune ourselves to consciousness, unaware of the complexity of our physical self.

What’s with the complexity? Intelligent, but whatever happened to simplicity! It amazes me how well equipped we are with an immensely complex apparatus that accepts inputs and gives appropriate outputs, thanks to the multiple holes, pores, orifices, etc. That’s right; we can pass off as strainers. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to bud off our mothers or grow from a strand of hair or something along those lines to keep things simple. Or better still, paraglide down the skies. I must admit, I am glad human babies don’t crack out of external eggs, ‘cause if your eggs go missing the last thing you want to see is masala omelet on your neighbour’s breakfast table. “Is that…?!”

Anyway, if I were to create life, I’d keep it simple. We’d function like a solar panel and be an assembly of detachable organs. Then we’d go to the stores and sound something like this, “I’d like a pair of blue and green eyes each, two packets of violet, curly hair please, and yeah, a pair of waxed legs… no, not those, the tanned, long ones.” It would be quite fascinating to see a new you each day–so Mystique. People would be so much happier with themselves and their spouses.

Look at the billion species on this planet for simplicity’s sake! Had we been well endowed with hair, we’d be chimps. Had we walked on our fours and resembled a bitter gourd, we’d pass off as crocks. Had we resembled a jelly nosed Pinocchio, we’d be certified elephants. Had we been detached, moderately running noses, trailing as we slid, we’d be called snails. In case of mobile goat droppings, we’d be called roaches. Come to think of it, creating a new species is like giving the sensory organs a new look. Truth is nobody can beat Lady Gaga! So why not keep it simple.

Two weeks down! It’s been an odd yet interesting journey that is now beginning to tend towards hectic. It’s nice to meet with new faces, new voices, new perceptions and old ways.

I’m neither happy nor sad but, possibly, anxious to be flanked by ugly reference books. Remember the graduation days when tossing your books into bonfires, while dancing around it, qualified as fairy tales? Although I’ve not reached that stage yet, I do think it’s time we got rid of the gravy. Serve me some juicy chunks of information already!

The good news is I don’t abhor my professors as much as I did during graduation. You know the stupid youngsters who’d rather assume their professors are out to make life hell for them? Remember, your bosses will always put your professors in good light. This is one of the advantages of gathering some work experience before pursuing your masters. Then no matter how your professors turn out to be, you’ll respect them.

I’ve not made any close buddies yet. I’m still in the communicating and scanning phase; topped with zero expectations. I’m not too sure how I’m going to get through two years without some crazy goons around me. I mean, what’s college without some awesome nut cases! Boy I miss junior college!

My writing is going to take a beating. Not like I’ve been churning out high quality literature but you’ll see more raw drafts now on because I’d like to keep up with the a-post-a-week ritual. I see you’ve noticed I’m way behind schedule. So what? I’m trying!

Religious advertising campaigns are an open secret. Each religion gives you a book of stories and you get to choose which one you’d like to believe. Or let’s say you get to decide which one of them qualifies as non-fiction in your head. While one gives you the opportunity to go to heaven, the other guarantees your rebirth. While one let’s you take an eye for an eye, the other compels you to forgive. Yet another ensures that what goes around comes around (So, sit back and have some popcorn.). While one guarantees you multiple partners in heaven (bang on target!), the other guarantees you freedom from all desires. While one says God is around you, the other says He is inside you. While one stops you from consuming alcohol, the other stops you from eating beef and yet another stops you from eating roots. You also get to choose whether you’d like to be buried, burnt or eaten by vultures, when you say your last sayonara. If you are an atheist, you have choices too! You get to rot in hell unless of course hell lies at the centre of the earth in which case you have no choice but to get roasted, or you get to be reborn as a pig and chewed by pork eaters.

Back home, after six long years of educating herself, my friend wanted her room to look bright and inviting, both for herself and the kids she provides therapy to. My job was to make that happen. This was our first time. Before experimenting, we thought it a good idea to get together and make a rough plan.

Wall1 Plan

Wall2 Plan

From the plans you must’ve figured that Vi is a diehard green digger.

Fortunately, Vi didn’t want the paints to last forever and neither of us wanted to get into any scraping, primer formalities. So, the boring work went right out the window.

On a not-so-happening Saturday we planned to meet up somewhere and buy some paints from somewhere. We walked in unsure of what type of paints to ask for. On a random guy’s advice we settled for water based wall paints that dry in four hours flat. The colour palette didn’t have all the colours we were looking for, so, we replaced them with new colours. We bought a few brushes and rollers, drank some sugarcane juice and headed straight home. We also invited a few friends to help us out with the painting but only Hem seemed excited about an overnight project.

A bit of lazing, a glass of tang, a plate of pasta and a few television shows later we got the room ready for a makeover. By then the third member of the clan had arrived and we were ready to paint the town green.

First, we divided wall1 into four parts with a paper tape to get it ready for the four green stripes. The opposite wall didn’t look any different so I didn’t bother putting it up.

tapes on wall1

The first stroke at midnight

Two coats later, the base for wall2 is ready.

getting the colours ready for wall1

stripe1 down

stripe2 down

We stopped at 5:30 am and left the paints to dry. In the mean time we slept and got back to work at 9:30 am.

Next two stripes down!

Second coat, tapes off and here we are!

Next, we used buckets, bowls of varying sizes to create the pattern of circles on wall2. For very large circles, we used a rope as a rounder– used one end as the center and held a pencil at the other end.

painting the circles

painting some more circles

and some more

We applied a second coat to the circles and wound up at around 4:30 pm. I decided to leave the detailing for the next day ‘cause my hand was far from steady and I needed sleep.

Detailing begins with Vi’s sun sign—Pisces…

…followed by Vi’s favourite fruit – grapes…

…followed by Vi’s favourite dancing instrument- ghungroo.

Vi signs her wall

So do I!

We made a seperate section for handprints. Hem left us half way, so she has yet to leave her handprints. Anyway, this is what the completed wall looks like.